


step back in time graciously taken

by musicspeakstoo



Series: boy you was battle born [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicspeakstoo/pseuds/musicspeakstoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babs suspects something's up with the new Robin and talking to him gets her a trip down memory lane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	step back in time graciously taken

**Author's Note:**

> This is /also/ not the thing I had wanted to post, but this fits the timeline better, so it's being posted now. I do have to warn you that the timeline is going to get a little fuzzy from here on in. The major stuff will be in chronological order, but things like characters who appear earlier in the comics timeline may not appear until later in the verse's one. Unbeta'd as always, so pardon any mistakes. Always remember to tip your waitress, folks.

Babs knew something was up with Robin, but she wasn’t sure what. She knew he had a big test coming up, and she’d vaguely gotten an idea of some girl trouble, so when she asked him to help her reconfigure one of her monitors, she knew he’d assume she was only doing it so he would have time to study. Both of them knew she could do it on her own, but her real motive would be buried under the somewhat obvious motive that the kid was just young enough to be caught up in the supposed injustice of to miss the underlying reason. It was a very Bat way of doing things, a habit Babs found herself falling into more often than she’d like.

They worked in relative silence, except for conveying whether or not the connections were working. Tim was buried underneath the desk, in the midst of the wires, and it seemed to be taking him longer than it should have. She suspected he was stalling for some reason and was proven right when he said, tentatively, “Hey, Babs?”

“Yes, Tim?” she replied, focusing her attention on him but never looking away away from her screen.

Tim was strangely skittish in a way his predecessors never were, something she suspected was a symptom of growing up in an empty mansion. Babs might not have had cameras on him then, but she did now and she didn’t get to running this city by not knowing how to put clues together.

“Can I ask you something? Something personal?”

She frowned down at him. He was still under the desk and all she could see were his tights-clad legs. The tights were how she’d known she was going to like him, really. The computer savviness had helped, of course, but it was more that he’d put tights on the costume and it somehow still felt like Robin. Dick had been so stubborn about the costume remaining true to its acrobatic origins, and Jason had been so determined to prove that anything Dick did, he could do as well. Part of her wonders if that’s why he stays away, because Dick does.

Tim waits for her response, she can see it in the stillness in his legs. He’s usually the one person she can count on to not beat around the bush, though, so he must care a great deal about whatever it was that’s bothering him, if he’s being so evasive. She wonders if it’s about her.

She sighs, suddenly annoyed,“Yeah, kid, spit it out.”

He slid out from under the desk and even with the mask on, she could tell his eyes were wide. 

He bites his lip and asks, “What was Jason like? Y’know, Before.”

He says it just like that too, the emphasis on “before.” As if she wouldn’t know what he was talking about. She sighs and sags in her chair, rubbing her forehead with one hand. She should have expected this, _has_ been expecting it, actually, since the night about a month ago when she’d peeked in on the cameras she had in Jason’s apartment to see Tim and Jason curled up on the couch, watching tv and laughing. 

She considers him and he stares back at her evenly, though the tips of his ears are a little pink. She’s been avoiding getting close to Tim, too worried about appearing to pick a side. Like if she’d gotten involved sooner it would say to Jason, who was only just starting to allow her closer again, that he didn’t matter. But now here Tim is, asking her about Jason, something hungry in his expression. She’s sometimes seen it on Bruce when he’s gathering evidence for an especially difficult case, but it’s softened by the bits of baby fat still hanging onto Tim’s face. 

“If you don’t wanna tell me, that’s fine too,” Tim blurts.

Jesus, his parents really did a number on him, she thinks.

“No, it’s okay, I was just thinking of where to start,” she replies, finally allowing herself to focus not on the Robin in front of her, but on the one before him.

She allows herself to smile, “Jason was a brilliant kid. Still is, I’m sure, but it was amazing how smart he was. Got really good grades that he worked hard to maintain. He loved to read.”

“He still does,” Tim adds and then abruptly blushes and stammers, “I-I mean, uh, I—”

She laughs and says, “Stop before you hurt yourself. I don’t care that you’ve been hanging out with Jason.”

“You don’t?” he asks, surprised and a little wary.

She shakes her head, “Nope. In fact, I think it’s good, for both of you.”

Something in the kid relaxes and he sits up, looking eager, “Well, then, could you tell me more? Please?”

She shakes her head again, fondly. One of her favorite perks about the new Robin is that Tim’s polite. The Birds would _love_ him and she makes a note to steal him away for a mission or two.

She obliges him, sitting back, her arms gripping the armrests a little too tightly, “Jason could be impulsive, yes, and he had a temper, but he was a good kid. I want you to know that, Tim. Take whatever Bruce and Dick have told you with a grain of salt, it’s easier for them to focus on the bad stuff so they don’t remember how much the good hurts to think about. Also believe me when I say that, despite all he’s done, I firmly believe he’s still a good kid.”

Her voice is fierce. She’s defensive of both of her Robins, but Jason needs it more right how. Tim nods, face solemn in an amusing contrast to his spiked up hair and colorful outfit. 

“The most important thing to know about Jason, pre and post-Joker,” she continues, “is that he’s just a kid. He was only about nine when his dad went to jail and eleven or so when he was orphaned. And then he was on the street fending for himself. And you know he was only fifteen when he nearly got murdered by the Joker.”

Tim nods and she wonders if his collection of photographs was as large as his one for Dick. She’s sure she could find out, but that doesn’t seem necessary. The fact that he’s asking about Jason, asking _her_ about Jason, is fairly revealing. 

“Well,” she adds, “he may not act like it now, but he’s still a kid and he’s still trying to do the right thing, even if he’s not going about it in a way that Bruce approves of.”

Tim nods again, curling up with his back to the CPU, soaking in both its warmth and her words. She takes a surprised, almost hurt breath at how small he is, suddenly remembering how small Jason had looked in his hospital bed. She mentally shakes the image away and tells Tim everything, everything that she wants to remind Dick and Bruce and even Alfred about Jason. 

How he was great with little kids and adored by the sex workers all around the city, but certain kinds of crimes just made him go ballistic. That he’d had an affinity for cars and boys, anything else she could remember. Anything that would dispel whatever ghost Tim had conjured out of the examples given by Bruce and Dick with the best of intentions, and some of their worst fears, and the impression he’d gotten out of their brief interactions. 

She talks and talks until her throat is sore and all she can see is a bright laugh and curly black hair. The comm in Tim’s ear crackles to life and Batman orders him out to patrol. He stands, shifting from foot to foot in front of her. If he were anyone else, not even Dick or Jason, just anyone, he would probably hug her right now. But, because he’s almost as bad as Bruce in both the emotional health and the touch-starvedness, he just shifts.

“Thanks, O, for everything,” he finally says, looking at her.

She feels a touch of fondness for the kid and waves him off, “Don’t worry about it, kiddo. Now, go out there and fight some crime.”

He nods and goes out the window. Smiling slightly, she turns her attention back to the monitors and pulls up a camera feed in Newark. Jason is clearly getting ready to patrol; his mask is on his face, guns strapped into their holsters, and his helmet lying on the counter. It’s a jarring contrast from the scrawny boy in the flashy colors she’s been talking about all day and she feels weighted down with sadness. Still, it’s the current Robin she has in mind as one of her feeds fills with the sound of him stopping a mugging.

“Between you, me, and Dick,” she murmurs at the screen, “we’re gonna get that kid to laugh one day.”

As she turns to give her full attention to her other feeds, she ignores that it sounds like a plea. There are some things she’s not quite ready to admit, not even to herself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at foxmulderscully on tumblr if you wanna come say hi.


End file.
